Missionary Chased Down While Waiting to Vote

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When he went back to his home village to vote in India’s recent elections, Gospel for Asia missionary Jadesh Kour faced an array of opposition and never got to cast his ballot.

Jadesh serves the Lord in Chhattisgarh near the border of Orissa, India. On November 14, he travelled with his wife and children 19 miles to his hometown—where he was the only Christian. He and his family had to stand in line on the side of the road to wait for his turn to vote.

When the villagers heard Jadesh was in town, they started stirring up complaints against him. Trying to scare the missionary, a villager drove his tractor down the road and purposefully sped toward Jadesh. Then the driver, with a gang of young people, surrounded Jadesh and started threatening him.

Seeing that the situation was quickly turning violent, a peaceful group of villagers came to Jadesh’s rescue and offered him a place to hide. But when the gang found out where he was hiding, they surrounded the house and threatened to burn it with him and his family inside. Again, the other group of villagers told the mob to leave Jadesh alone.

It wasn’t until 3 a.m. that Jadesh, with his shirt torn and his bike confiscated, could return with his family to his village. Police told Jadesh he had to pay 6,000 rupees (US$120) to get his bike back and that they couldn’t protect him from the angry mob.

“You became a Christian, and the villagers are not happy,” the village leaders told Jadesh. “This is election season, and we can’t do anything to help you.”

Jadesh is pastor of a church and has started seven fellowship groups. He also oversees an orphanage and Bridge of Hope center. He asks for prayer that the Lord will give him strength and courage to continue serving, and that he can get his bike back without paying the fine. He also desires that the people who opposed him will come to know Jesus.

Violence Forces Church and Center to Close

An anti-Christian extremist group has physically forced a church building and a Bridge of Hope center to close down in Uttar Pradesh, India. The leader of the radical organization plans to replace the church building—where a Gospel for Asia missionary serves as pastor—with a Hindu temple.

With a mission to bring India back to Hinduism, the leader of the group is also plotting to force all the local Christians to convert. These “reconversion” ceremonies often include physically and mentally abusing believers until they bow to traditional idols and deny Christ. And often, those forced into Hinduism were not even followers of that religion before they became Christians.

Many teenage Dalit (”Untouchable”) boys are drawn into the radical group by offers of a better life—the very inducements that the extremists falsely accuse Christians of using! Ironically, they also promise the Dalit youth opportunities they would otherwise be denied by the very caste system their religion perpetuates. The boys are then indoctrinated with extremist beliefs and encouraged to persecute religious minorities.

GFA leaders in Uttar Pradesh request prayer that the Christians will have the Lord’s grace to remain firm in their faith despite opposition. They also ask for prayer that the radicals will abandon their plots to turn the church into a temple and try to forcibly convert the Christians into their religion.

Vietnamese Authorities Pressure New Christians to Recant

Compass Direct News reports from Ho Chi Minh City (Sài Gòn):

In violation of Vietnam’s new religion policy, authorities in Lao Cai Province in Vietnam’s far north are pressuring new Christians among the Hmong minority to recant their faith and to re-establish ancestral altars, according to area church leaders.

Local authorities have warned that on Sunday (Nov. 23) they will come in force to Ban Gia Commune and Lu Siu Tung village, Bac Ha district, where the Christians reside, but they did not say what they would do.

When the authorities in Bac Ha district in Vietnam’s Northwest Mountainous Region discovered that villagers had converted to Christianity and discarded their altars, they sent “work teams’ to the area to apply pressure. Earlier this month they sent seven high officials – including Ban Gia Deputy Commune Chief Thao Seo Pao, district Police Chief A. Cuong and district Security Chief A. Son – to try to convince the converts that the government considered becoming a Christian a very serious offense.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.

Christians Arrested, Shops Looted in Egypt

Compass Direct News reports that

Authorities in an Egyptian village arrested 50 Coptic Christians, whose shops were then looted, to pacify Muslims following violence that erupted on Nov. 4 over a Christian boy’s unwitting break with custom.

Muslim villagers attacked the homes and shops of Coptic Christians in violence-prone Tayyiba, a town with 35,000 Christians and 10,000 Muslims, after 14-year-old Copt Mina William failed to dismount his donkey as a funeral procession passed.

William was watching the procession in Tayibba, 220 kilometers (137 miles) south of Cairo, with Nathan Yaccoub, also 14.  William’s failure to dismount violated a local custom of showing respect, Copts United reported, and members of the procession reportedly beat him before completing the procession.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.